


I Love You Just The Same

by deathishauntedbyhumans



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Character Study, Easy Intimacy, First Love, Other, Self-Indulgent, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, no specified gender for reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathishauntedbyhumans/pseuds/deathishauntedbyhumans
Summary: You are in love with a man who loves you in return, but you are not his first love.
Relationships: "Calico" Jack Rackham/Reader, past Anne Bonny/Jack Rackham (implied), past “Calico” Jack Rackham/Charles Vane (implied)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	I Love You Just The Same

**Author's Note:**

> I’m TRYING SO HARD to finish my Max/Anne fic but this snuck up on me this morning instead so... have at thee, I suppose. 
> 
> Title comes from _Emelina, Right or Wrong_ by The Altogether.

You are in love with a man who loves you in return, but you are not his first love. It’s something that you know, that you have come to terms with, something that adds to his beauty, his charm. He loves you, but you have never been his first love. 

You think about it often. There is no bitterness to accompany the thought; there never has been. You fell in love with Jack despite the fullness already holding his heart, and then, as the two of you grew together, because of it. 

Sometimes, you think his first love is the sea. He is so  _ passionate _ when he speaks of it, when he regales you with tales of his adventures from years past. You have been at sea with him long enough now that any tales he might tell of your shared present would be redundant, but it does not stop him from trying when he thinks that you’re too tired to notice that you were  _ there  _ for the account he is gesticulating wildly to. The sea is a mystery, with her ever-changing tides and the endless adventure that she offers. She is as beautiful as she is dangerous; you often find yourself falling in love with her all over again, too, so it is no strange feat that Jack’s first love may be someone as bright and salty as she. 

Sometimes, you think his first love was —and is— Anne Bonny. She has not joined you at sea in years, but he speaks of her often, with a fond and sometimes sad glint in his eyes. You have grown very competent at knowing when he needs you to comfort him and when he needs to be left alone with his thoughts and the memories of Anne that he holds so dear to his heart. You have never once blamed him for the way he feels. Privately, he has confessed to you that he blames himself at times, that he feels that he cannot be good enough for you because of the remnants of love that he holds for her. Each time, you have pulled him into your arms and kissed him tenderly and asked him, truely, if he feels that he loves you, too. He has always taken time to answer—you would never wish for him to answer you without thought, a fact of which he is well-aware— but each time, he has said yes. 

“That is enough,” you tell him, and you have never allowed him to protest the matter further. His experiences with Anne define him, _just_ _as_ his experiences with you do. You will not begrudge him the memory of the time he spent with her, or the stolen moments they take together that he knows you know about on the rare occasion that you all wind up on the same piece of dry land. 

Sometimes, you wonder if his first love was Charles Vane. He does not talk about him often— and he is usually drunk when he does. But there is that same soft, fond look in his eyes when he finally has enough liquid courage in his system to allow the thought of his old captain to slip uninhibited from his head to his lips. 

“Charles was a good man,” he says quietly, full of a fire you have never even thought to try and quench. “A terrible, terrible man,” he usually adds, with a dry laugh that doesn’t reach the rest of his face. “But… a good man nonetheless. I’d be dead today without him.” The slight slur in his voice does not take away from the serious tone he retakes, and you nod gravely without saying a word, because there is nothing in the moment that you can ever think you might need to say. 

You don’t know much of their personal history, and you will never ask. If Jack feels like telling you, then you will listen, but it is such a private bond that you would never want to feel like you were taking advantage of him by asking after it. You were not sailing with Jack then, and you never managed to meet Charles Vane, something that the whispered rumours of the impact he made almost makes you glad for. But Jack’s history with his “Chaz” defines him, too, even if he doesn’t like to think about it sober. You do not fear the implications of the two of them together, either. At one time, you might have, when you were young and new to the life of a pirate, when you feared most whispered names of infamous men that passed through the lips of your crew. You are old enough now, and seasoned enough, that nothing as slight as a name or an implication can frighten you anymore.

Sometimes, you can pretend that you are his first and only love. You do not do it out of bitterness, or anger, or even a want to be the only person he holds dear. It is simply hard  _ not _ to think as much, when Jack holds you in his arms after the two of you make love. It is hard not to pretend that you are the only two people in the world when he kisses the spot behind your ear that makes you weak, when he murmurs sweet nothings to you that he’s only half-aware he’s murmuring. 

“You know that I love you,” he whispers, like it’s a secret for only you to know. And you do know it, so well that it makes you positively ache to think about it. You smile and curl up further against his firm chest and kiss him on the neck in return. 

“And  _ you  _ know that I love you,” you return, in that same secretive whisper. 

You are in love with a man whose first love is the sea, or his childhood lover, or his old captain, but that does not mean that he does not love you as well. You are both happy, and  _ that  _ is truely the only thing that matters, in the end. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please, for the love of GOD, let Jack be happy? Please? Fuck. (I haven’t finished all of Black Sails yet so do with that information what you will.) 
> 
> Kudos/comments are love! Come scream at me on tumblr @deathishauntedbyhumans.


End file.
